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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

I'm tempted to write this whole post in ALL CAPS because of the excitement associated with these people, this very important purchase, this adventure, the promise of more of this. Ferg + Maclean finally made it out to San Francisco (YAY) and we all went camping. Rewind: KK and I saw Of Monsters and Men on Friday, and prior to the concert, I bought a tent from REI. Yes. Yes. Yes. Fast forward: After some morning breakfast sandos and last minute packing, we went C-A-M-P-I-N-G. The crew met up at In-N-Out Burger (#classic) and then two packed cars drove out to Point Reyes for wilderness time.

We hauled in tents, sleeping bags, firewood and Oreos. We created the ultimate beach bonfire. We got kicked out of our pirated campsite by a French couple. We spoke of the aliens at Mount Shasta and we all tried to convince the Texans to move to SF (please?). All in all, it was a rich weekend of community, conversation and coastal views.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

I didn't think that anything could beat my first trip to Yosemite back in April when it happened to be snowing and the park was covered in white. But now... I don't know. I think fall is overlooked as a season for all that it offers. The park was red and green and yellow and orange. The temperature encouraged us to take the roof off of the Jeep. The light breaking through the trees beckoned us off the trail and into the deep of the woods. Maybe there really is no bad time in Yosemite. (Except summer... I don't think I like heat anymore.)

We left the city around 4:30am, pushing our departure up an hour earlier compared to the previous trip. This is the most still time. People were ambling home from the bars while we were ambling toward adventures. Funny how neither party was really fully awake. We're all just treading through this still time.

Determined to make it to Yosemite by sunrise, we did just that and I remember very little of our early morning conversation, or the music we listened to, or what silly things we said to keep one another awake. I just remember beginning to give each of my eyes ten seconds of rest... first the left eye and then the right eye before I asked Deb to take over. Oh yes, of course I went to Yosemite with Deb.

We stopped at many of the same spot and overlooks and vista points from our prior trip because wow, these places were vastly different. The whole color scheme had flipped from cool blues and grays to warm yellows and streams of sunlight. We also found ourselves ahead of the packs of tourists who were somewhere nestled in tents, or back behind at the park gate, or maybe far ahead on a hike before us.

We did some of the tourist spots, but one of the highlights of the day was leaving the path and wandering through some woods. Simple enough, but we felt like Hansel and Gretel leaving a field to enter the dark forest. We eventually exited out into a clearing with a pond, a lake? Deb told me she only wished for wildlife, deer specifically, in that moment and then it happened. They were there, as were we, and we just all said hello.

We concluded the day with lunch at Glacier Point, except we gave up a mile or so before we reached our destination, and decided to park alongside a Jeep twin, and claim our own peak for picnic. The view was probably better anyways. The souvenir pinecone definitely was. Okay, back to Yosemite soon. Yosemite in winter? Yes.

Hello

My name is Victoria.
Native Texan, currently living in San Francisco, California.

I have been blogging since the summer of 2010. The name "haaston" was derived from my last name, original hometown of Houston, and then my second home in Austin. I am here to share stories, to share adventures, and to share life.